The stingers get stung

The news broke late yesterday afternoon, and every media outlet has posted a story about it, so consider this one a coda.

A Harris County grand jury on Monday indicted the videographers behind undercover recordings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston and cleared the women's health provider of any wrongdoing. 

The indictments — part of the county prosecutor's investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue — include charges against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. The grand jury handed down a second charge for Daleiden for “Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs," according to the Harris County District Attorney's office. That charge is a class A misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to a year in jail. 

The grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston of breaking any laws.

The Republican district attorney, appointed by Greg Abbott (and subsequently re-elected against a worthy Democratic challenger) investigated the national women's healthcare organization for wrongdoings associated with the undercover and heavily edited videotapes by the two folks named above.  It was the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who pressured the DA to bring charges to a grand jury.  She did, and the grand jury returned an indictment.  Just not against Planned Parenthood.

The irony is so rich it must be fattening.

"We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” Anderson said in a statement. "As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case."

Rarely do you see a group of right-wing freaks get clocked this badly all around the horn.  It reminds me of the kind of embarrassment inflicted upon themselves -- and the rest of the state of Texas --  by the advocates of the Operation Jade Helm conspiracy.  Except in this case, women's lives and health have been endangered by their rabid, frothing extremism.

On to the next outrage, patriots!  You have lost the Battle of the So-Called Baby Killers.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance, in bringing you this week's blog post roundup, hopes everyone stays safe in the Northeast as the socialist snowplows come to the rescue.

Off the Kuff interviewed Harris County Sheriff candidates Ed Gonzalez and Jeff Stauber.

SocraticGadfly questions the mainstream media narrative that the GOP presidential race is down to a Trump-Cruz two-person event with this analysis and has a follow-up skewering of the Trump-Palin fun coming.

McBlogger goes the full 'pragmatism' on Bernie Sanders.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, state Rep. Garnet Coleman, three current and one former Houston city councilmen all want to take the place of the recently-departed Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee on the November ballot. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the latest on the most highly contested 2016 race that you won't be eligible to vote for.

Of course the frackers are big GOP donors. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows that the Texas Republicans don't work for you. They work for their rich buddies.

In additional fracking developments, Texas Vox has the details on the teleconference open to the public on EPA's assessment of hydraulic fracturing and its effect on drinking water, and TXsharon at Bluedaze has more environmental news from across the country.

Texas Leftist writes about the legal challenge to Obama's executive action on immigration moving toward the SCOTUS.

nonsequiteuse attended the HISD meeting where Confederate heroes, and the schools named after them, were on the agenda.

Neil at All People Have Value took a Martin Luther King Day picture of two different types of birds sharing space in peace. We could learn from these birds. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

=================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Democratic Blog News has this pointed reminder: "Texas primary early voting starts on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 and runs through Friday, February 26, 2016. [...] Texas early voting voters will likely have cast about half of their total primary ballots by the time SC Democrats vote in their primary on Saturday, February 27th."

Prairie Weather helps out with a good definition of 'progressive'.

Zachery B. Taylor asks whether academia is helping or hurting democracy.

Jonathan Tilove noted that Greg Abbott flew Air Adelson to Israel and then Davos.

Ty Clevenger appealed the slap on the wrist given US Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. in his judicial misconduct investigation.

Keep Austin Wonky interviews Texas House candidate Huey Rey Fischer.

The Current advertises a movie screening to raise money for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the FEC against Ted Cruz for his failure to report those Goldman Sachs and Citibank loans from 2012.

Anastasia Hansen tells you things you may not have known about Houston's bus system.

And Progress Texas documents four decades of Texas abortion laws.

Sunday Funnies, The Hopelessness of Unaudacity edition

Props to Ted Rall for the title of this week's edition.

Rodney Ellis wants to fill vacancy on Harris commissioners' court

But he doesn't want the interim job.

Longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis has begun making calls to local Democratic Party leaders and plans to run for the Harris County Commissioner seat left vacant after the death of El Franco Lee, a spokesman said Thursday night. 

County Judge Ed Emmett will announce and swear in Lee's temporary replacement in Precinct 1 on Friday and Lee's name will remain on the ballot for the primary. 

But Ellis' campaign spokesman David Edmonson said late Thursday the Houston lawmaker was not pursuing Emmett's interim appointment. Ellis has researched the statute, and has asked an aide to lay out the steps a candidate like him would need to take to get his name removed from the November ballot for senator should the Democratic Party chairs choose him as the general election candidate for the commissioner's seat.

I take this at face value; Judge Emmett will appoint someone to serve for the rest of this year who is not named Rodney Ellis, and that is a little surprising.  Whatever it means, Emmett will announce his pick at ten a.m. this morning, and I'll update here (but not until this afternoon, so watch your Twitter for breaking news at that time).

Update: It's Gene Locke, former city attorney, former mayoral challenger.

Locke, 68, a senior partner at the Andrews Kurth law firm, served as city attorney under the late Mayor Bob Lanier in the 1990s and ran for mayor in 2009, losing in a runoff to Annise Parker. 

"I plan to be a hands-on, on the ground, let's get with the program commissioner, which means that I will follow in El Franco's footsteps," Locke said. 

He added: "This precinct belongs to El Franco Lee, and anything that I do over the next several months is dedicated to him." 

Asked if he intended to run for the post in November, Locke said, "My intention is to go back to the practice of law and enjoy my family."

Locke tried the old "black, brown, and red" (names you'll recognize) route to the mayor's office in 2009, made the runoff but didn't come all that close to City Hall.  In a related development, Quorum Report notes that another powerful state legislator is thinking of challenging -- in whatever fashion that happens to take, since at this point it's the Precinct One chairs who will vote to select a permanent replacement this summer -- for the seat on commissioners' court.

... Rep. Garnet Coleman tells QR he is looking at it as well: "As chair of county affairs, it’s something I’ve looked at for a very long time. I didn’t think that Rodney would pursue it, but he decided to."

Update II:

City Councilmen Jerry Davis, Dwight Boykins and Larry Green said Friday they have begun campaigning, such as it is, under these unusual circumstances. Councilman C.O. Bradford said constituents had encouraged him to run, and he's considering it. 

[...] 

A legal memo prepared for county Democratic chair Lane Lewis outlined a path by which Ellis said he could seek the (November) ballot spot. In mid-June the Democratic party chairs for Precinct 1 will vote for a candidate to replace Lee on the ballot. 

If the party chose him for commissioner, Ellis could withdraw his name from the ballot for state senator, which would trigger a second process by the Democratic leaders to pick a Democrat for state Senate.

Presumably there will be six months of schmoozing the precinct chairs with votes in the contest.  We can start the Ellis/Coleman replacement watch to ticking, and Borris Miles is allegedly the early front-runner in a potential SD-13 special election.

Medicare for All and the Hyde Amendment

What does Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for All' do about the Hyde Amendment?  This is the conversation we should be having about his healthcare initiative, and there's a cogent (though somewhat caustic) discussion happening over at Balloon Juice about it.

One of the issues that is being elided over by (Sanders') plan is the assumption that the Hyde Amendment won’t apply.  The Hyde Amendment is a long standing restriction on federal funds for abortions.  The Stupak Amendment in the House Bill and the Nelson  Amendment in the passed PPACA enshrined Hyde into PPACA. 

My company offers full coverage for elective abortion for commercial, employer sponsored coverage unless the employer specifically requests that we don’t cover it.  Most insurers offer full coverage with only normal co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles for elective abortion because it is a simple and straightforward medical procedure. 

Going to single payer in a universe where Hyde/Nelson applies means the vast majority of women who don’t have $500 to $1,000 in spare cash lying around lose access to affordable abortion options.

I'm pretty sure that they need that much money, or more, now (2009 statistic) if they don't have any (or very limited) healthcare coverage now.  That's to say nothing of the expense associated with onerous restrictions within the Texas law, such as hospital admitting privileges that resulted in closed clinics across the state, necessitating 300-mile one way trips, two times, to satisfy the waiting period.  And so on.

And this is where Larry Levitt’s comment comes into play.   Our political universe has a demonstrated durable anti-female sexual autonomy majority of 240+ votes in the House during the most liberal Congress in two generations.  Any Democratic House majority on current maps will have dozens of representatives from districts that are more Republican than the nation.  Better maps in 2022 will still have a marginal House seat be a Republican leaning seat.  Even deep Blue seats are not guarantees to produce pro-female sexual autonomy votes (Lipinsky, Lynch etc). 

This is part of the larger objection Clintonites, i.e. 'pragmatists' have about electing Sanders, which is essentially culled down to "he won't be able to get anything through Congress" (as if Obama has, or Clinton would).  And that reveals another of my many objections to a second Clinton presidency (or a third Obama one, if you prefer): that one of her 'grand bargains' with Republicans in Congress whittles, privatizes, or eliminates more of the New Deal programs that first created an American middle class, dooming this nation to an austerity so severe that a shooting revolution becomes more possible than a political one.

If you still don't get that, then read this.

In related news, and apparently in response to my challenge, Ted steps up and applauds the DNC.  He just steadfastly and stubbornly refuses to comprehend that 'progressive' and 'politically correct liberal' are two very different things.

Update (1/23): Sanders calls for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment.